College 101: Getting to Know Your Library: Using SuperSearch
Using SuperSearch
What is SuperSearch?
SuperSearch is TCC Library’s discovery tool. SuperSearch searches the library catalog and most of the library’s research databases AT ONCE. So with one search, you can get books, encyclopedia articles, magazine articles, newspaper articles and scholarly and peer-reviewed journal articles.
You will get a lot of results!
You then can refine your results using the filters on the left side of the page. Do you want to get only reference articles, in order to get an overview of your new topic? Easy! Do you want to only get peer-reviewed journal articles published in the last 5 years? Simple! Are you not sure where to begin your research? You can start here! By using SuperSearch, you can discover a great deal about your topic.
Where is SuperSearch?
- It's on the library's home page!
- You can start typing in your search terms directly in the embedded search box
(click on image to enlarge)
Using SuperSearch is as easy as Search - Refine – Get!
- Search: enter your search terms
- Refine: use the filters on the left side of your search results
- Get: click on an item to access it
Use the search box below to perform a search in SuperSearch:
When Should You Use SuperSearch?
When is using SuperSearch particularly useful?
- When you are beginning to learn about a topic and you want to explore it.
- You have a topic that you want to approach from different perspectives. For example, if you are researching the topic of happiness, and you want to learn about psychological, sociological and health-related aspects.
- You are not sure where to start your research.
When is using SuperSearch *not* so useful?
- When what you need can better be found in a specialized research database. For example, nursing students will most likely want to go directly to the CINAHL database. Paralegal students should still go directly to the Westlaw database.
- When you want something from a database that is not yet included in SuperSearch results. These databases include ARTstor, Bloom’s Literary Reference, and Congress and the Nation.
- When you want articles published in the past few months. For these, you will want to go directly to individual research databases.
How to Use SuperSearch
Video Tutorial
Watch this video to learn how to best perform searches using SuperSearch:
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